Tome of Battle

[Shnigda]

Hey guys,
I was just wondering what it is about the Tome of Battle that makes martial fighters more interesting. Is it stances, feats, ACFS?

[Pluto!]

...The subsystem that the book introduced?

[Studoku]

Manoeuvres, mostly. Unlike fighters, Tomb of Battle characters have options in combat beyond "I full-attack".

[The Insanity]

Options.
Wait, let me refraze that.
Good options.

[StreamOfTheSky]

It gives many great combat options. Both alternatives to full attacking and effects and martial battlefield control stuff instead of or in addition to damage (make foe lose their turn, hit and disarm them, paralyze them, stun them, make them flatfooted for a round, take away their ability to full attack, ignore their DR for one attack, make an attack against touch AC, etc... there's even a save-or-die at the highest level) and some decent ranged attack options.
It makes you a bit less gear-dependent and self-sufficient with healing abilities and even two maneuvers that entirely replace your damage with a skill check, allowing you to be dangerous with literally any (improvised) weapon.
It also gives you protections against casters and other exotic threats with stuff like Iron Heart Surge, the Diamond Mind save replacers, eventual fire immunity, turning briefly incorporeal, blind sense, and so on.
And it gives stuff with lots of out-of-combat utility like teleportation, short duration invisibility, air walk...those examples are actually all just from one discipline.

The thing I dislike the most about it actually are the damage boosting maneuvers. I think they go over the top sometimes (Divine Surge is a good example... you can get it at level 7 and it deals +8d8 damage on top of your normal melee damage -- if you have str 18 and a +1 greatsword, that's 2d6+7+8d8...an average of 50 damage at a level some might not even have that much hp), and are by far the laziest and least needed maneuvers in the book. They can make a weak attacking chassis viable (low str and a crappy weapon), but they can also take an already optimized damage output and make it obscene.
It's also disappointing that trip got a whole set of strikes to support it, disarm at least got one nice low level application, and even overrun got a maneuver, but grappling was completely ignored aside from two stances -- one to get a constrict attack and another to use 1H weapons in a grapple. Would've been cool to see a set of maneuvers like the setting sun throws were for trip that utilized grappling for joint locks and stuff. Grappling is a factor in so many martial arts, it was odd it got so neglected.

[mostholycerebus]

What all of the above REALLY does is allow martials to run with Tier 1-2's without feeling completely useless. It also allows a party to have more than one martial, without stepping on each others roles.

[NomGarret]

It would have been nice to get some grappling maneuvers, but page counts and space are a thing, and it wouldn't surprise me if there were a few concepts left on the cutting room floor for potential supplemental releases.

[Grod_The_Giant]

you can get it at level 7 and it deals +8d8 damage on top of your normal melee damage -- if you have str 18 and a +1 greatsword, that's 2d6+7+8d8...an average of 50 damage
It's not that hard to do that kind of damage with a non-ToB melee, though: Power Attack for, oh, 3 + Leap Attack + Pounce and you'll get a pretty similar total. That's pretty standard mid-op melee. Which brings me to another great thing ToB gives you: high floors. You can take a character with nothing but ToB feats and randomly-chosen maneuvers and still contribute effectively to the party, which is great for new players.

[Saintheart]

Hey guys,
I was just wondering what it is about the Tome of Battle that makes martial fighters more interesting. Is it stances, feats, ACFS?

It's being able to scream some variant of 'FIVE SHADOW CREEPING ICE ENERVATION STRIKE!' on just about every standard action (and several swift ones as well (literally if you're a Ruby Knight Vindicator)).

[Mr Adventurer]

Well, to be honest it doesn't do much for Fighters. Gives them a couple if nice new options but nothing game-changing.

What it does do is give you classes that are alternative to the Fighter, that you can legitimately point at and say "I am a fighting man and this does what I want".

[Curmudgeon]

It gives the melee combatant a variety of fluff to go with "I hit for X damage", and sometimes a chance that their attacks will fail in an Antimagic Field. It also makes them encounter amnesiacs, because they'll forget how to execute the combo that worked for them just 6 seconds ago.

If you've played 4e, it's basically that minus at-wills and dailies.

[Dienekes]

More of an echo of everyone else really, but it gives fighting types options.

Take the fighter, really at any given level the fighter does a set pattern of: charge to target on turn 1, full attack until dead, repeat. Sure it has other combat options like grapple, and sunder, but on a whole the only one that's really worth doing consistently is Trip. So, it can get kinda repetitive. Then, outside of combat the fighter (without excessive optimization) the only think a fighter can really do is Intimidate, sure climb, jump, that sort of stuff comes up, but they tend to be team barriers. Like, you need to climb this wall in order to go to wherever, so the checks are largely easy enough for the party to pass through even if they don't have points in the skill, if the party is smart enough anyway. Sure, the fighter could climb up somewhere to scout, but that's best done by something with Spot on their skill list anyway. The fighter only fights, but does so in a repetitive manner, that is actually pretty easy to shut down with a lot of the monsters in the manual.

Now take the warblade. A warblade can do everything a fighter does, really, it can still charge, it can still full-attack, it can still trip, sure a fighter may be able to do that a little better by focusing on feats that aid those actions, but that just gets them more stuck in a rut of doing the same things over and over as they're just so much better than any other options they have. The warblade has maneuvers and stances that allows them to do many more things in combat, things that can alter the flow of the battle more than just "that enemy has reached 0 hit points it's dead now." You can knock prone, disarm, boost your allies, ignore DR, it's all pretty nice, and definitely easy to just pick up and go. You don't have to pour through countless books to get the right feats, they're all in the Tome. So you get a more varied and dynamic play, which a lot of folks find fun. Then let's look at out of combat, twice and probably more skill points than the fighter is good, adding Diplomacy to the list is a nice touch. But, somewhat surprisingly, a lot of maneuvers and stances actually have a good deal of out of combat benefit, you can get yourself the Scent ability, move faster, and you can turn off any de-buff that's put on you from a trap, or basically get an auto-success on Will Save stuff that can happen throughout the game, and White Raven Tactics, if you can't think of cool things to do with that in and out of combat you're not trying hard enough. And, warblade is generally considered the weakest of the three classes when it comes to out of combat shenanigans. Having played a warblade, I can pretty safely say, while you may not be as ever useful as a wizard when dealing with stuff out of combat, at the very least you will never (or at least very rarely) be sitting around twiddling your thumbs as others get things done, as rather frequently happens to the fighter.

[OldTrees1]

Fighters like good options (which merely numeric bonuses do not count as, nor do weak non numeric effects).

There are good options outside of the Tome of Battle but it takes much more system mastery to find as many good options outside of the ToB as any new player can find in the ToB. Seriously the difference in good option density is that drastic.

Players sometimes prefer certain mechanics over other mechanics for reasons other than power.

Tome of Battle has a different mechanical texture than the other good options available to a Fighter. Those other options stick with the "You have some techniques that you can use multiple times per round, every round". Tome of Battle comes in with "You have many techniques that you can use one-ish per round, but you are meant to change up every turn". For some this is a huge difference where they have strong tastes one way or the other. Tome of Battle does a really really good job of satisfying its side of that mechanical divide.


Edit:
Oh and it even adds some good feats / stances for people that prefer the other side (Evasive Reflexes is a nice techniques that you can use multiple times per round, every round.

[atemu1234]

Tome of Battle adds new classes, an interesting subsystem, and even more options.

[Renen]

{scrubbed}

[Nihilarian]

It makes combat styles other than "beat someone to death with the biggest hunk of metal you can find" viable. It lets you contribute to battle while retaining your mobility. It lets you interact with combat in ways that martial characters usually have difficulty doing. And sometimes it even lets you interact with the world outside of combat. So: options. That's what makes Tome of Battle interesting.

[Yael]

One of my favorite sourcebooks, it adds versatility to combat classes by the use of maneuvers, which are far more effective than the standard Standard Action attack.

Tome of battle is the reason why I decided to run into the bunch of mobs while being a housecat. How it ended? Mobs flying everywhere.

[SinsI]

It also makes them encounter amnesiacs, because they'll forget how to execute the combo that worked for them just 6 seconds ago.

I usually fluff it as changing battle situation. Combos might require specific in-combat conditions that enable some maneuvers but prevent others. I.e. if opponent is holding his shield a tiny bit higher than normal you can utilize a low attack but can't use a high attack. So it is not that they forgot how to use a low attack after executing that maneuver - it's just that the enemy has pulled his shield down, making that low attack no longer an option.

[noob]

I think I like the crusader because it is like a paladin but without the honor code and of any alignment and who get stuff like giving an initiative boost to an ally or automatic 11 for the first save or healing making them ridiculously hard to kill and make them feel more useful for the team than a barbarian and making him feel he is not doing the same thing every turn.
Also it can get extremely interesting once you are in an anti-magic zone with interactive environment like elevators and auto closing/opening doors and bridges while with a fighter or a barbarian it could still be interesting but the only tactic thing would be to get fights with the smallest possible number of opponents and to do full round attacks.

[atemu1234]

I do recommend giving it a read. While it is useful, it is not for everyone (some people play fighters for the simplicity, for example), so you should know what you're getting into.

[Curmudgeon]

So it is not that they forgot how to use a low attack after executing that maneuver - it's just that the enemy has pulled his shield down, making that low attack no longer an option.
And your refresh mechanic makes the enemy raise their shield so you can use that low attack again?

I don't buy that.

[SinsI]

And your refresh mechanic makes the enemy raise their shield so you can use that low attack again?

I don't buy that.
That one example was for Crusader with his random refresh. For other classes they might require different things, like position of limbs or distribution of Qi.

[Story]

The fluff says suggests that you're off balance after the maneuver or used up your ki. There's lots of possible ways to interpret it.

[Grod_The_Giant]

And your refresh mechanic makes the enemy raise their shield so you can use that low attack again?

I don't buy that.
The flow of battle isn't right to use that maneuver again, unless you take an action to get in position (ie, recover). Or the enemy saw what you can do and is ready for it. It's an abstraction for game balance purposes, the same as many things in d&d. Why could my sorcerer wind up in a situation where he can cast time stop but not magic missile? Why can my monk only use his stunning fist x/day? Why can a 1st rogue find a trap while a 20th level ranger can't?

[Killer Angel]

Why can a 1st rogue find a trap while a 20th level ranger can't?

to be fair, the ranger can find the trap. And, given the 20th level, it should even survive. :smallwink:

[OldTrees1]

It's an abstraction for game balance purposes, the same as many things in d&d. Why could my sorcerer wind up in a situation where he can cast time stop but not magic missile? Why can my monk only use his stunning fist x/day? Why can a 1st rogue find a trap while a 20th level ranger can't?

The competing abstraction is: A full attack includes enough attacks and feints for the martial character to setup their techniques multiple times every turn.

Not everyone will like ToB's choice of abstraction. Some will like it better and some will like it less than the competing abstraction. This is a fact that won't go away no matter how long it is argued online.

So I for one am glad that ToB added this alternative abstraction(readying/recovering) despite greatly preferring the other one(PHB) myself.

[rrwoods]

When I'm playing other martial classes (fighter especially but this applies to barbarian, rogue, or anything else I can think of), my sense of advancement comes from whatever toys I can buy at the magic mart. New sword! New armor! Belt of giant strength! Now I can hit things harder/faster/stronger and they can't hit me as good! Yay! And to be honest, for a while, that was Good Enough for a while ... But after that while I felt like my characters' mechanical identities were defined by their equipment instead of their class features. Eventually that grew to be unsatisfying.

Then Tome of Battle introduces martial classes with this new subsystem and suddenly the mechanical identity shifts entirely, due to the plethora of options available at each level. The options themselves are really cool and tactically sound, but for me the biggest thing is how I get wrap up with a nice little bow the personality of the character in the same package as the character's tactical role. Each discipline offers interesting tactical options with flair -- sneaky and suspicious? Shadow hand. Over the top and dramatic? Desert wind. Strong and silent? Stone dragon.

It's extremely refreshing to be able to tie role play so closely with tactics, something the casters have been able to do via spell selection since the game's inception.

Oh, and melee doesn't suck anymore.